December’s GDP figure showed 0.4% growth with consumers generally spend more, a welcome relief after three months of flat or negative figures, although businesses remain concerned about the upcoming tax and minimum wage hikes.

However, quarterly figures showed lacklustre growth of 0.1% for quarter 4, so far avoiding a technical recession.

GDP grew by 0.4% in December, largely influenced by the services sector with output here also increasing by 0.4%, while GDP for the quarter grew just 0.1%.

One of the strongest growth sector was accounting which brought in £200m more than December 2023, up 1.4% at £3.55bn, but it was down 8.4% drop from the previous month’s £3.6bn.

This was unsurprising given the shorter month with Christmas New Year office closures, and it will bounce back strongly in January as it is the busiest month of the year for accountants.